Ep 59: The Healer Lies Within through Ayurveda with Avanti Kumar Singh

“Each of us has that innate ability to attain and maintain our own optimal health – the real healer lies within.”
— Avanti Kumar Singh

I’m honored to bring this second episode of the fourth season of The Mother’s Quest Podcast with Avanti Kumar Singh, a physician, teacher and guide with a unique ability to open our minds and help us find the healer within through Ayurvedic medicine.

The inspiration for this episode with Avanti came during a car ride last August from Camp GLP (Good Life Project) to the Newark airport with two friends I attended the weekend experience with, Lizzy Russinko and Judy Blank Zinnato.

We were exchanging notes about our favorite workshops from the weekend and all the lessons we learned, when Lizzy shared the life-changing wisdom she gained from hearing Avanti present. Judy and I were both so sorry we had missed it, and I vowed in that moment to do my best to connect with Avanti and to share her wisdom with you.

The conversation, eight months in the making, did not disappoint! I loved the journey we explored together, from the impact of Avanti’s own mother and the Indian traditions that shaped her healthy childhood to her health crisis while studying to be an emergency physician and how that created a spark moment that brought her back to her roots and Ayurveda.

Touching on each E.P.I.C guidepost, Avanti shares how Ayurveda can become a powerful lens for living a healthy, reflective life, one where we open our minds, and tap into our own ability to provide counter-balance to the things that are troubling us and support our own healing. Within that frame, we touched on so many topics, from Ayurveda and parenting to menopause, intermittent fasting and how to support our children as they transition to college and beyond.

Avanti gives us a challenge to explore our daily routines, identify any trouble spots and then apply the teachings of Ayurveda to craft our own remedies. And after we finished recording, Avanti offered to share an even deeper exploration of Ayurvedic principles, give us a chance to ask her questions, and share what we’ve uncovered about our daily routines through a Master Class that we’ll be offering on April 30th. Sign up for email updates at mothersquest.com and join the facebook group and you’ll be notified on the date and time so you can join us.

This conversation is just the beginning for how we can tap into the power of Ayurveda in our own healing. I’m feeling so grateful to start along this path with Avanti as our guide.

Much appreciation,

P.S. Check out the announcements below and pay this forward to a friend who may be interested.

This Episode is Dedicated by Alexia Vernon:

Alexia Vernon Empowerment, LLC is a family-led business, founded by Alexia Vernon in 2007, and co-run with her partner in business and in life, Stephen Oliveira.

Branded a “Moxie Maven” by President Obama’s White House Office of Public Engagement for her unique and effective approach to empowering women’s professional success, Alexia is the author of Step into Your Moxie: Amplify Your Voice Visibility, and Influence in the World. A sought-after speaker, coach, consultant and media contributor, Alexia is the creator and leader of multiple speaker training programs and has delivered transformational keynotes and corporate trainings for Fortune 500 companies and professional associations, spoken at the United Nations, delivered a TEDx talk on the future of feminism, and been featured by media including CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., and Women’s Health.

In This Episode We Talk About:

Avanti’s return as an adult to the Indian roots she grew up with and that positively shaped her health

Principles and the “golden rule” of Ayurveda, a form of traditional medicine that originated from Indian culture, ayur meaning “life” and veda meaning “knowledge”.

Avanti’s health crisis during medical school and how that set her on an unexpected path

The “qualities” that exist in all of nature and how Ayurveda uses them to promote wellness

The power of looking for answers within and how Avanti cultivates this in her children through her parenting and in her students through her teaching

An “epic snapshot moment” of Avanti’s as she witnessed medical students’ minds open to the possibility of traditional medicine approaches

Avanti’s daily routine and how we can integrate it into our lives, the power of a menu of options for a morning routine, and the importance of an evening routine to set yourself up well for your morning

The Counterbalance Solution Avanti has created and the 3 Areas of Remedy: daily routine, diet and tools of Yoga

Ayurvedic perspective about peri-menopause and menopause and some counterbalance approaches for it

What Avanti has to say about intermittent fasting

An invitation for us to examine our own daily routines and identify remedies to counterbalance challenging aspects of our day and the challenge Avanti said “yes” to related to her daughter transitioning to college next year

Resources Mentioned:

Learn More About Avanti Kumar Singh:

Avanti Kumar-Singh is a physician who, after medical training in emergency medicine, began a journey to find her joy again- and to help people truly heal. Realizing that you can “quit your job but you can’t quit your calling”, Avanti set out to discover what really makes people healthy and what predisposes them to illness.

She is now on a mission to evolve the conversation and to create a movement in which medical professionals reclaim the “art” of medicine and become heart-centered, healing catalysts that practice true medicine and support self-healing in their patients.

Over the 20 years of her training, study and research, Avanti has shared her expertise with Fortune 500 companies, elite undergraduate and graduate institutions and at prestigious industry and medical conferences. She has also been featured in the Huffington Post and was a member of upwave.com’s review board—Turner media’s former health and wellness entertainment brand. Avanti is currently the co-lead facilitator of the Faculty Scholars Program in Integrative Healthcare at the OSHER Center for Integrative Medicine at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

Avanti holds a BA in Art History from the University of Chicago and an MD from Rush University College of Medicine. She is also a certified plant-based professional and a certified yoga therapist (C-IAYT). Avanti lives in Chicago with her husband and two children. Her first book, Ayurveda for Everyone, will be published in late 2019.

Announcements:

FREE Ayurveda Master Class + Q&A with Avanti Kumar Singh

Do you want to tap into your own ability to support your healing? Join the Master Class by signing up here

Mother’s Quest Circle

One Spot Left!!

If you’re on a quest to live an E.P.I.C. life, on the threshold of a new chapter, but feeling uncertain or challenged by the path ahead, and want to be in community on your journey, the Virtual Mother’s Quest Circle may be the source of connection you’re looking for.

The Mother’s Quest Circle provides inspiration, coaching and community for an intimate group of no more than 8 women who are ready to say “yes” to:

✨Reflect together, in a community of like-minded mothers, on what matters most✨To consciously live their version (not someone else’s) of an E.P.I.C. life✨To take bold action toward one of the E.P.I.C. life guideposts before the end of the sessions✨To hold space for sharing, coaching, and championing one another

If you’re looking to create big shifts in your life or impact in 2019, the Circle is a great way to make an investment in yourself and what matters most to you. Apply here.

Spark Your E.P.I.C. Year

Anyone else not have your year start the way you hoped?

A few months ago, we declared February the new January and facilitated a Mother’s Quest Workshop/Virtual Milestone Hike experience to help us all start again.

Using photos from my favorite local hike, I took a small group on a virtual journey to:

✨Reflect on our last chapter (as we ascend)✨Decide what we want to release (using an image of a big bad bonfire!) and what we want to carry forward✨Then, set intentions along the E.P.I.C. guideposts for our new chapter.

There’s a special planning sheet we created to guide you and help you document the whole process.

🌟Truthfully, we can start fresh any time we choose.🌟

If you decide you want to reset and begin again, today, this afternoon or this weekend, using this experience and worksheet to support you. Just sign up here.

Join me on my #100dayproject Journey

I’m doing Lindsay Jean Thomson’s #100dayproject and decided to record 100 stories about the making of Mother’s Quest on my Mother’s Quest Bite-sized Reflections on Living an E.P.I.C. Life Podcast (an unedited sister podcast to my interview show.)

Support the Podcast

If you’d like to make a contribution to Mother’s Quest to support Season Three of the Podcast and/or help provide coaching scholarships for mothers, follow this link to make a contribution.

If you would like to “dedicate” an upcoming episode to a special mother in your life, email me at julie@mothersquest.com

Mother’s Quest is a podcast for moms who are ready to live a truly E.P.I.C. life.

Join in for intimate conversations with a diverse group of inspiring mothers as they share how they are living an E.P.I.C. life, Engaging mindfully with their children (E), Passionately and Purposefully making a difference beyond their family (P), Investing in themselves (I), and Connecting to a strong support network (C).